After forcing webmasters to wait 10 months, Google has confirmed that a new ranking algorithm update has been released this week.

Panda 4.2 brings good news for anyone who was penalised by the previous update. If you took the right action to fix your mistakes, then you should notice a positive change in your organic ranking.

However, it could be a while before you notice this.

In the past, when Google has released an algorithm update, its impact has been immediate and widespread. However, this release is different. It’s being rolled out so slowly that webmasters are unlikely to notice any sudden impact to their website’s rankings.

Google’s lips are sealed as to why they have taken the “go slowly” method, but they can confirm that it will likely impact around 2%–3% of English language queries worldwide.

Our CEO, Clay Cook, makes a point that if you’ve forgotten to make changes to your website, then it’s a little too late. “Despite this update being a “slower” release than normal, there is no point rushing any sudden changes to your website. They will not be picked up by Panda 4.2.”

Being proactive instead of reactive is always a good approach. “It’s still early days, but we’ve noticed very little impact to our clients website rankings from this update and we don’t really expect to. This is because our approach to SEO is to be proactive. If webmasters continually update their content as part of their overall SEO strategy, then their website is less likely to feel the wrath of Google.”

If you do find you’re website has been negatively impacted by the update this time round, then use it as a timely reminder to implement the required changes to increase your content quality. You just never know when Panda 4.3 may arrive…